Thresher

Thresher, farm machine for separating wheat, peas, soybeans, and other small grain and seed crops from their chaff and straw. Primitive threshing methods involved beating by hand with a flail or trampling by animal hooves. An early threshing machine, patented in 1837 by Hiram A. and John A. Pitts of Winthrop, Maine, U.S., was operated by horsepower. Large stationary threshers powered by steam engines or tractors, common in the early part of the 20th century, were part of harvesting systems in which the grain was cut either by binders or by headers. In most farm regions, threshers, binders, and headers were all superseded by combines during the 20th century.

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Harvesting machinery is generally classified by crop: reapers for cutting cereal grains and threshers for separating the seed from the plant. The more modern combine cuts, threshes, and cleans the grain in one operation. Corn (maize) harvesting is performed by mechanical corn pickers that snap the ears from the stalk so that only the grain and cobs are harvested. Corn shelling may be done...

...in bunches on the ground to be bound by hand. In 1843 a “stripper” was brought out in Australia that removed the wheat heads from the plants and threshed them in a single operation. Threshing machines were powered first by men or animals, often using treadmills, later by steam and internal-combustion engines. The modern combine harvester, originally introduced in California...